Why do businesses want you to excuse them for poor service when they are busy? Is this okay for the customers?

Restaurants are notorious for this business practice. When they get busy, they ask you to wait longer for just about everything including a table, a server, food, the check, water, drinks, etc. The terrible part of this business approach is that they know when they will be busy. In certain industry segments in the retail consumer arena, the businesses know when they will be more busier than usual–down to the exact shift. The expected busy day may include a special holiday like “Mother’s Day” or a self-imposed busy day like “Black Friday.”

Are they conditioning consumers to stay away on busy days because of an expectation of poor service and an overall unpleasant experience? How many people do you know who will stay away at any cost when they expect a place of business to be busy? With the prevalence of review sites like Yelp and retailers losing to online e-commerce web sites, business owners can’t expect consumers to just “deal with it” anymore.

What if on your busiest day, you gave all who’ve come an amazing and pleasant experience? How many unpaid ambassadors would you create?

Being busy does not excuse poor service.

This is just another area where “business as usual” is no longer accepted. Just ask AOL what happened when they didn’t take care of their customers when they were busy.